Jeff and I flew our M60's in a new spot yesterday for the first time. Pretty amazing place. 50-80 foot vertical rocky cliffs at the top of a slope that's overall 1150 feet high and averages just a tick under 45 degrees the whole way.
Here's a short video showing a 180 degree pan of the NW face we flew.http://www.houseofthud.com/videos/mtzionNW-pan.avi
(DiVX codec required)

Anyway.. we shot about 20 minutes of video between the both of us. I'm still trying to figure out how to put together a moderate sized video of the highlights because basically the whole thing was a highlight.. but I did manage to clip out 3 minutes of easy DS turns for their own little video. http://www.houseofthud.com/videos/mtzionNW-DS2.avi
A couple things to keep in mind here.
1. First time flying this slope from this direction, and it's a pretty intimidating place to fly.
2. First time DSing this slope from this direction
3. First time dropping the M60 over any backside with ballast..

So I wasn't pushing it anywhere near as hard as I'm sure it's capable of. Prior to this I'd tested the air with my 17oz Moth and it came back from the backside pretty hot, so I think all I need to do with the M60 is tighten up the turns and she'll rip. The DS groove was silky smooth. Best I've ever flown. I figure it was probably only cruising along at about 75-85mph though. Looking forward to cranking it up cranking it up again soon.

Originally posted by j l Itís amazing how much adrenaline your body can produce just by watching a plane and moving your fingers a bit.

No doubt. I tested the air up there with the Moth, and was unable to land it on the backside without just banging it straight into the ground. Not to be dissuaded with a 20mph wind blowing, I ballasted up the M60 and threw it off this shear drop, having not yet decided how I was going to land it. I flew for 15-20 minutes mixing front and back sides, and by then was seriously in need of a break. Jeff was filming and watching, and since the landing problem hadn't been solved yet, he wasn't ready to throw his M60 over the edge yet (only its 3rd flight).

So killing two birds with one stone, I handed my TX to Jeff and he flew my M60, while I took a break and filmed it. Bout halfway through his flight, I finally figured out how we could land (walk down to the north end of the ridge, and land on the "side" of the hill above the paraglider launch). Few minutes later, I took the stick back, and of course my TX batteries konked out just then, so the landing choice had to be tested immediately. I got a bit impatient trying to get it down fast (that damn beeping on the TX does that to ya) and went too far back and dorked it in the rotor, but we proved that it was possible to scrub off the necessary altitude and groundspeed if you just stayed out directly north of the end of the ridge doing S-turns without letting it fall back too far.

By the time I had fetched my glider and made it back to the top Jeff had tossed his off. Filmed that for a while, and then he too, got worn out dreaming up new aerobatic maneuvers and tried out the landing approach and pretty much nailed it.

So now we know what to expect in terms of lift, and how to get it back on the ground in one piece so the site is definitely a winner. Rates a 10 out of 10 for frontside lift.. 8-10 out of 10 for DS for being so smooth (just need to push more to know what it's ultimately capable of) and about a 6 out of 10 for landing, due to the tricky, but doable approach. Will have to land the M60 up there a bunch more times before deciding if it'd ever be realistic to fly a crunchie off the top. 5 out of 10 for ease of access. Park in the normal spot below the M and it's a hike, up 300 feet vertically, to the top.
Totally worth it though.

Ian, that is one pretty slope. I think your scenery rivals that of Brian C. for the best slope backdrop around.

The M60 looks mighty impressive, nice carry to the frontside with that thing. It seems to REALLY retain energy well. I couldn't believe the punchout height you were getting with the relatively mellow turns. I think the M60 is next on my list.

If you need space/bandwidth for video you can get free webhosting at RCGroups currently. It starts at 300mb of space and 1GB/month transfer but they will up the quota as needed apparently. Just thought I'd mention it.

Thanks for the kind words.
I've actually got a 360 degree pan I stitched together some time ago shot from pretty much the same location. (Bout 20 yards north of where we flew) http://www.houseofthud.com/rc/zion-pan4-2.jpg
Couldn't reach down into the valley with that one, but it shows off the scenery. It starts pointing South at Lookout Mountain (lump on the horizon at the far left is Green Mountain), Clear Creek Canyon drops off straight to the west, windsock (put there by the paragliders) directly to the north (in front of North Table Mountain), Coors Brewery nestled between North and South Table Mountains.. and just on the right edge of the south mesa out about 10 miles is the Denver skyline almost due East.

I may check out the hosting on rcgroups for the R/C videos.
Between my car videos, R/C videos, photos, and misc other stuff, my website sees 14-20 Gigabytes of traffic per month. 50 downloads of a 20 Meg video (about 4 1/2 minutes) will eat up a Gig of bandwidth, just like that.

Man, I don't want to hear that. There's nothing else in the area even remotely close to Action. Only LHS that sells a selection of micro servos and gear sets, micro receivers and crystals, every type of covering material, *gliders*, glass cloth, carbon tow, glue's galore and all at prices fairly competitive with what I can get stuff for online.